Pygmalion

The Pygmalion Effect
There is a tale from Ancient Greece of how a prince turned a statue from ivory to life and married her. It is the story of Pygmalion. Remarkably, the principles of this story are relevant to modern techniques of leadership. Read this article to find out how.
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A team does as well as you and the team think they can.

This idea is known as "the self-fulfilling prophecy". When you believe the team will perform well, in some strange, magical way they do. And similarly, when you believe they won’t perform well, they don’t.

There is enough experimental data to suggest that the self-fulfilling prophecy is true. One unusual experiment in 1911 concerned a very clever horse called Hans. This horse had the reputation for being able to add, multiply, subtract, and divide by tapping out the answer with its hooves. The extraordinary thing was that it could do this without its trainer being present. It only needed someone to put the questions.

On investigation, it was found that when the questioner knew the answer, he or she transmitted various very subtle body language clues to Hans such as the raising of an eyebrow or the dilation of the nostrils. Hans simply picked up on these clues and continued tapping until he arrived at the required answer. The questioner expected a response and Hans obliged.

In similar vein, an experiment was carried out at a British school into the performance of a new intake of pupils. At the start of the year, the pupils were each given a rating, ranging from "excellent prospect" to "unlikely to do well". These were totally arbitrary ratings and did not reflect how well the pupils had previously performed. Nevertheless, these ratings were given to the teachers. At the end of the year, the experimenters compared the pupils’ performance with the ratings. Despite their real abilities, there was an…...

Similar Documents

...Pygmalion in Management*
In George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, Eliza Doolittle explains:
"You see, really and truly, apart from the things anyone can pick up (the dressing and the proper way of speaking and so on), the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she's treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you, because you always treat me as a lady, and always will."
Some managers always treat their subordinates in a way that leads to superior performance. But most managers, like professor Higgins, unintentionally treat their subordinates in a way that leads to lower performance than they are capable of achieving. The way managers treat their subordinates is subtly influenced by what they expect of them. If a manager's expectations are high, productivity is likely to be excellent. If his expectations are low, productivity is likely to be poor. It is as though there were a law that caused a subordinate's performance to rise or fall to meet his manager's expectations.
The powerful influence of one person's expectations on another's behaviour has long been recognised by physicians and behavioural scientists and, more recently, by teachers. But heretofore the importance of managerial expectations for individual and group performance has not been widely understood. I have documented this phenomenon in a number of...

...Pygmalion originates from the Greek mythology of a king of Cyprus. The king falls in love with an ivory sculpture of his own creation. Captivated by the beauty of his sculpture, he pleads to the Greek gods to give him a wife as much like the sculpture as possible. The gods bring the sculpted woman to life. In the theatrical version of Pygmalion, scriptwriter George Bernard attempts to prove the concept that “the way one person treats another can, for better or worse, be transforming” (Livingston, 5). In the article “Pygmalion in Management” author J. Sterling Livingston uses Barnard’s fairy tale and the Pygmalion effect, as a metaphor for his power of expectation arguments
Livingston engages in various aspects of the Pygmalion effect in management by researching several different experiments related directly to the effect. The first experiment Livingston discusses is an experiment that took place by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. The manager of this company assigned his best six insurance agents to his best assistant manager, assigned six average agents to an average manager, and six below-average agents to a below-average assistant manager. He requested that the best agents and manager produce two-thirds of the premium volume reached by the agency during the previous year. As the manager predicted, the members of the superior group fulfilled their expectations and as expected, the below-average group’s productivity declined. The average group however......

...Creating positive expectations is extremely difficult, according to J. Sterling Livingstone. However, it has been observed beyond doubt that if a manager expects more and better from people in his group, they will outperform a group whose manager believes the reverse, even if the innate talent of these two groups is similar. Subordinates are influenced by the way they are treated by their managers. This phenomenon leads us to understand that it is very important for managers to ensure that their team members have the correct understanding of the expectations to help them perform up to the desired level.
High expectation acts as a motivator and can lead the group to even perform beyond their normal capability. Grouping your best team members together will further improve their performance. At the same time, putting average and low performers together will lead to decline in their performance.
At times, the average performer can be lead to believe that they are not very different from super performers and maybe they just lack the experience or the exposure. Their conviction in their ability will give them the confidence to do better.
Bad performance or failures at work lead to low self-esteem and self-image. In such situations also, better expectations can work as a boost to the morale. Low expectations can make a person feel worthless.
The relationship between motivation and expectation can be represented by a bell curve which means that within a mid-range, the......

...Pygmalion
Taking place in early twentieth century London, the play begins with the social class divide and turns into a tale of a poor young woman, Eliza, wishing to better herself so she could move up in life. Sounds like a typical fairy tale beginning right? Not quite. A bet is made and Eliza is turned into a new project for Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics. The play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw was a comical drama, held at the Stagehouse Theatre. Social class, vanity, transformation, and even regretful wishes plague the characters of Pygmalion.
The setting of Pygmalion was simple and brought the audience right up into the play. Walking down the stairs from the entrance the audience is given the feeling of walking into a different world. Darkness and music welcome us in and the dim stage lights allow us to navigate to our seats. The lights go out and we are surrounded in total darkness and begin to hear the sound of rain as the characters walk into an apparent street scene. Sitting the in the front row I was close enough to reach out and touch Eliza, even smell her if the stench of the dirty flower girl had been real. This allowed me to become captivated and entranced by the scenes set before me. A large stone wall with a massive wooden door is their backdrop. The second act takes place an apartment, clearly a bachelor’s pad, as there is nothing to indicate a woman’s touch. A few chairs, couches and tables indicate a sitting room and their......

...PYGMALION GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Character; Eliza Doolittle (age 18/20)
The shallow depression in the west of these islands is likely to move slowly in the easterly direction. There are no indications of any great change in the barometrical situation […] what is wrong with that, young man? I bet I got it right… (Darkly) My aunt died of influenza: so they said. (In the same tragic tone) But it’s my belief they done the old woman in. Why should she die of influenza? She came through diphtheria right enough the year before. Fairly blue with it, she was. They all thought she was dead: but my father he kept ladling gin down her throat til she came to so sudden that she bit the bowl of the spoon… (Piling up the indictment) What call would a woman with that strength in her have to die of influenza? What become of her new straw hat that should have come to me? Somebody pinched it; and what I say is, them as pinched it done her in… Them she lived with would have killed her for a hat- pin, let alone a hat… Gin was mother‘s milk to her. Besides, he’d poured so much down his own throat that he knew the good of it… It never did him no harm what I could see but then he did not keep it up regular. (Cheerfully) On the burst, as you might say, from time to time. And always more agreeable when he had a drop in. (To Freddy, who is in convulsions of suppressed laughter) Here! What are you sniggering at? Have I said anything I oughtn’t?...

...In The Merchant of Venice and Pygmalion, Portia and Eliza on the surface seem to be typical women of their time, sold to men and told who to marry. Although more than 300 years separate these two plays, the role of females is very similar in that they are portrayed by society as objects of desire. Women typically got their identity from that of their husband’s power and status. Portia and Eliza both illustrate how women can have great influence and which is unheard of from women in the renaissance and early 20th century. Shakespeare and Shaw use female characters to convey the true definition of feminism by creating heroic and independent characteristics in Portia and Eliza.
As seen in both the Merchant of Venice and Pygmalion, Eliza and Portia were both given arranged marriages and told who they belong to. This was the common thing that was done in renaissance time (Merchant of Venice) and also in the early 1900’s (Pygmalion). In Pygmalion, Higgins says “Very well, then, what on earth is all this fuss about? The girl doesn't belong to anybody—is no use to anybody but me”, Higgins is implying that Eliza doesn’t belong to anyone at the moment, meaning that a girl should belong to someone. In Merchant of Venice, Nerissa is quoted “Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men at their death have good inspirations: therefore the lottery, that he hath devised in these three chests of gold, silver and lead, whereof who chooses his meaning chooses you, will, no doubt, never be......

...INDIVIDUAL
ASSIGNMENT
OF
ORGANIZATION BEHAVIOR
AND
LEADERSHIP
Submitted To:
Mr. Madan Lal Pradhan
(Course Instructor)
Submitted By:
Manish Ratna Sakya
MBAe IV ‘A’
1. What is Pygmalion effect or self fulfilling prophecy?
Ans: The Pygmalion effect is the phenomenon in which the greater the expectation placed upon people, the better they perform. It also states that high achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectations. The belief of Pygmalion effect will lead people to perform closer to the expectations that they set for themselves. The studies of the Pygmalion effect are difficult to conduct. However, the results show a positive correlation between leader expectation and follower performance, but it is argued that the studies are done in an unnatural, manipulated setting. The paradox of the Pygmalion Effect is that having high expectations of people will produce better results, but it’s also more likely you’ll be disappointed. In business, managers, bosses, and corporate superiors can often influence the work and success of employees by expecting them to either rise or fall.
The Pygmalion effect is very similar to the concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes it to become true. The effect has both positive and negative outcomes — a person expected by his or her superiors to succeed will, but the opposite is also usually true.
2. What evidence of self...

...Motivating High Performance with High Expectations Aim high
The Pygmalion Effect helps you think about how your expectations of other people can influence or motivate their performance. It argues that by setting and communicating high performance expectations, you can motivate better performance from the people you lead and manage. The effect was originally studied in context of teachers' expectations of their students: Students who are expected to perform well usually do so. Those students of whom teachers have lower expectations will generally perform less well. However, this approach has clear application in the corporate world. This effect is named after George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion", which is the basis of the film and stage musical "My Fair Lady". Shaw summarizes the effect by character Professor Higgins' observation that: ...the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she's treated. Understanding the Theory As a manager or supervisor, your aim is to get the best performance from the people who work from you. If you have high expectations of a member of your team, this can reinforce your efforts.On the other hand, if you convey lower expectations of an individual, this can undermine your efforts to improve his or her performance. Without knowing it, you may show low expectations by delegating less challenging and interesting work. You may pay less attention to team members' performance and give them less support and praise...

...The Pygmalion Effect in Management
J. Sterling Livingston’s article “Pygmalion in Management,” published in the September/October 1988 edition of the Harvard Business Review, details a bizarrely effective phenomenon known as the “Pygmalion Effect” and it’s effect on managed staff. In short, this effect is defined as employees responding to the expectations and attitude of their manager towards them by living up to said expectations and effectively transforming the employees into the persons the manager perceives them as. Livingston firmly believes in the existence of this phenomenon and explains into detail the inherent double-edged nature of the effect and how a manager can use it to his or her advantage. After studying Livingston’s findings and following up with research and experience of my own, I am compelled to agree with Livingston’s views on the effect and how they can be used to enhance productivity and employee satisfaction.
To look further into the Pygmalion Effect, one must first understand the mythos of Pygmalion, of which the phenomenon is named. Pygmalion, a Cypriot sculptor, carved the image of a woman out of ivory to fill the void of a lover and companion in his life. As the days went by, he grew increasingly infatuated with the statue and obsessively wished for it to be an actual human being. The gods took pity on his plight and granted Pygmalion’s wish. As he returned to his love, Pygmalion realized that his creation had taken human form as he had......

...Pygmalion in management
The Pygmalion effect is based on the fact that people often live up to the high expectations of other individuals whether their managers, teachers or relatives. Others expectations often lead people to transcend their own abilities and talents and cause self-fulfilling prophecies.
J Sterling Livingston, in this article, explores the various facets of this effect in management by looking at the results of different experiments related to it. In one of the examples of the Metropolitian Life Insurance Co., an experiment was carried out in which employees were divided to groups on the basis of previous performance and assigned managers of commensurate ability. As expected, the people of the superior performance group lived up to their expectations and performed admirably; on the other hand, the productivity of the lower performance group declined. However, the anomaly was the average performance group which performed beyond expectations the reason being the manager in charge of the group having a more positive image of her than the perception held by her superiors and the subsequent rub off this image and self-expectation of greater performance onto the entire group. The Pygmalion effect can also be observed in medical science in the form of placebo effect when a non-existent drug administered to patients by physicians who reinforce the efficacy of the same in their recovery often leads to miraculous results.
Communication is however a critical......

...English Essay Pygmalion
Grade 9
The Transformation of Eliza
Transformation is a thorough change a person’s form of life or their appearance. In the play ‘‘Pygmalion’’ by Bernard Shaw he shows this by the transformation of Eliza. After professor Higgins corrects Eliza’s speech Eliza gains independence; in her marriage; she can now marry a middle class man, her choice of job; she does not need to be a flower girl anymore she can open her own flower shop and she gains confidence as she works her way up to the upper class.
After the transformation Eliza is not in the upper class but she is in the middle class thus making her marriage life more attractable to men in the middle class that she would had never attracted before when she was in lower class such as Freddy. Before Eliza was a flower girl she couldn’t attract upper class men. The men would abuse her when she was a flower girl. Now since Eliza moved upped a class because of her speech Freddy is starting to fall in love with her: “ Oh,no,no darling: how can you imagine such a thing? You are the loveliest, dearest’’(Shaw, 82). This quote proves that Eliza is attracting middle class men such as Freddy who thinks Eliza is the most loveliest girl. With Eliza moving up a class she will now dress more flatteringly and the men of the upper or middle class will start to take notice: “They stop talking to look at......

...Pygmalion- George Bernard Shaw
The play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw is a play about social change as well as language. It takes place in London, England in the early twentieth century when speech and choice of words was an important factor in one’s social standing. Shaw reflects this in the two main characters, Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle.
The character Eliza Doolittle is presented at first to the audience as ‘The flower girl’. She is a common girl who sells flowers down at Covent Garden, once known as London's main fruit, vegetable and flower market. She lives in poverty as during then, Covent Garden was a very poor area. At first, she is shown to the audience as quite a rude, smart-mouthed and loud girl. In the play she keeps on repeating “I’m a good girl I am” making people understand that she just sells flowers, and not herself; she is not a prostitute, as many would assume so.
At the start of the play, we are also introduced to ‘The Note Taker’ soon known as Henry Higgins himself. Higgins is a professor of phonetics and the Pygmalion to Eliza. He is presented as a person who has a lot of power, is arrogant and careless about others. Moreover, Higgins is very wealthy, he is shown to the public his upper class status by the way he dresses “It’s aw rawt: e’s a gentlemen: look at his be-oots…” When he first meets Eliza he insults her and bullies her by calling her “a squashed cabbage leaf” and a “girl” when clearly she is a woman. This shows how he is also......

...Pygmalion
Shannon Childers
Western Governors University
Pygmalion
I found Pygmalion to be a very funny and entertaining work. I am from the South and have been told I have an accent. So I felt like I related to Eliza in that sense. I have observed how the language you use can influence other’s impression. When speaking on the phone with people I am not acquainted with I will change the way I speak. I do this so that others will not have any problems understanding me and so that I am not considered a backwoods redneck.
The most interesting part of the book is the ending. We are lead to believe throughout the play that there is some sort of love affair developing between Eliza and Mr. Higgins. The play concludes with them fighting with each other and Eliza declaring that she could teach others. Mr. Higgins finally sees her as a strong women and invites her to stay with him as well as buy him pair of gloves and a ham. As Eliza is walking away she tells him good-bye and that she is never going to see him again (Shaw, 1912). In 1916 Shaw was upset that critics and audiences were actually changing the way the play ended in order to give it a happy ending. So he wrote an essay “What Happened Afterwards,” which proceeds to continue telling the story and Eliza does not end up with Mr. Higgins (Solomon, 1964).
Pygmalion was published in 1912 in a time where there was a differentiation between the upper and lower class of society. In this time period women......

...Pygmalion
Shaw, George Bernard
Published: 1913
Categorie(s): Fiction, Drama
Source: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3825
1
About Shaw:
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950) was
an Irish playwright. Although Shaw's first profitable writing
was music and literary criticism, his talent was for drama, and
he authored more than 60 plays. Nearly all of his writings deal
sternly with prevailing social problems, but have a vein of comedy to make their stark themes more palatable. Shaw examined education, marriage, religion, government, health care,
and class privilege and found them all defective. He was most
angered by the exploitation of the working class, and most of
his writings censure that abuse. An ardent socialist, Shaw
wrote many brochures and speeches for the Fabian Society. He
became an accomplished orator in the furtherance of its
causes, which included gaining equal political rights for men
and women, alleviating abuses of the working class, rescinding
private ownership of productive land, and promoting healthful
lifestyles. Shaw married Charlotte Payne-Townshend, a fellow
Fabian, whom he survived. They settled in Ayot St. Lawrence
in a house now called Shaw's Corner. Shaw died there, aged
94, from chronic problems exacerbated by injuries he incurred
by falling. He is the only person to have been awarded both the
Nobel Prize for Literature (1925) and an Oscar (1938). These
were for his contributions to literature and for his...

...PYGMALION EFFECT v/s GOLEM EFFECT
Pygmalion Effect
One of the most interesting parts of the movie is the way Lt General Irwin motivates the inmates of The Castle. He reminds them that they were soldiers and not petty criminals and thus gives them back their self respect and makes them believes in themselves.
The inmates of The Castle were primarily ex army personnel who had been imprisoned for violating the martial law. They had been stripped off their ranks and with that their self respect. They were reminded everyday that they were not soldiers anymore. They were even reprimanded for saluting. Lt Eugene Irwin felt the need to develop the feeling of self respect in them. He reminded them that they were distinguished members of the United States Army and tells them that they are expected to act in a manner befitting one. Thus he manages to return to the inmates of the Castle their self respect thereby giving them the courage to strike up a rebellion.
This is known as The Pygmalion Effect.
There are a number of occasions on which The Pygmalion Effect has been demonstrated in the movie.
1. First is in the case of Corporal Ramone Aguilar. Corporal Aguilar was a young marine who had been arrested for act of violence. He had a problem of low self esteem and stammered while talking. It was Lt General Eugene Irwin who reminded him of the fact that he was still a distinguished member of the United States Marine Corps. He told him the importance of saluting.
When the time...